Use These Bitrix24 Alternatives for Your Company: Teamwork and Wrike

This blog post is about Bitrix24 alternatives, but before I go ahead with more discussion, once upon a time, team collaboration happened over emails only. Cut to the present time; social collaboration is the new way to engage employees.

Recently, I finished reading Social Collaboration for Dummies by David F. Carr. This book talks about the social collaboration principles and technologies that companies apply to enhance the team’s productivity. However big or small the company is, a social collaboration tool is being used by all.

It is while reading this book that it dawned upon me how the social networking principles are slowly blending into our work front.

Social collaboration immediately calls for a modern UI, where you can share, like, comment, attach documents and do so much more together. Yes, ‘working together’ is what a collaboration tool helps in.

One such tool is Bitrix24. Launched in 2012, this team management tool offers a practical approach to manage the company. Starting with options to like, comment, have group discussions to making an announcement, tagging colleagues, creating reports, managing time – Bitrix24 does it all. You can have fully customised self-hosted editions.

It is a great tool, to be honest, but there are some restrictions too. When I tried Bitrix24 alternatives, Wrike and Teamwork while I was using Bitrix24, here is what happened-

Wrike’s customised reports and workload management did fascinate me, but I fell in love with Teamwork.

There are so many ways to organise a team and Teamwork goes on to prove that.

Before I draw a comparison between the two alternatives of Bitrix 24- Wrike and Teamwork, I will walk you through the features of Bitrix24 first.

Bitrix24: Features Overview

As I mentioned, Bitrix24 is a team management tool that spreads out into document management, time tracking, likes, comments, video chats and more.

The website is neat and intuitive, to begin with. You can categorize the features under sub-headings of Social Network, Tasks and Projects, Chat and Video, Documents, Drive, Calendars, Mail, CRM, Telephony, HR, Mobile, and Additional tools (which is tagged as ‘More’ on the website).

Phew! That’s a long list. Let’s take a look what each of these categories has got to offer.

Social Network

Like I said, Bitrix24 kind of works on the principle of social networks.

Social networks provide ease in communication. So does Bitrix24.

This tool is all about communication seamlessly. You can

Manage Tasks

Share documents

Track time

Standard workflows for leave requests, business trips, expenses, purchases, and other general requests (included in

Standard and Professional plans)

Email collaboration from the dashboard itself

Integration with Facebook, Twitter, and G+

Be aware of what others are doing in the team, participate in discussions, and choose what updates you want to see on your Activity Stream. You can like contents to show your acknowledgment to your coworkers. The best part is, you can motivate or appreciate your colleague using a Badge (‘awards’) that shows up on the activity stream and profile of your coworker.

If you thought you could create posts or announce your updates only on social networks, well Bitrix24 has it covered for you. Never miss an announcement that shows up on the top right corner of the main page. You can make announcements too.

Bitrix24 does remind me of social networking platforms! The photo gallery on Bitrix24 is integrated with the Activity Stream. You can see the thumbnails appear automatically and can be liked, viewed or commented on.

Tasks and Projects

Bitrix24: Tasks and Project Management

Bitrix24 has its core in helping teams to collaborate. To manage tasks and projects, here’s what you get-

Gantt Chart to view tasks and sub-tasks. You can modify your task after it has been added. Get to know who is doing what and by when.

All Bitrix 24 plans offer Task dependencies. You can establish logical relationships between tasks and milestones. Along with that, custom task fields are available on premise Bitrix24 editions.

Workload management helps in identifying who is getting overworked and how the load can be shifted.

Task counters to take note of tasks that require immediate attention.

Add checklists to your tasks and track the progress real-time.

Automate regular chores using task templates. You can check business process designer for automated task creations triggered by specific events.

Create groups that work like mini-intranet. Store files and data that are relevant to this group. Plan, discuss and get work done quickly.

Pre-set task report template to evaluate team’s efficiency and progress level. These can be exported as Excel files.

Report builder to collect data and evaluate effectiveness within the team.

Work groups can be shared with external partners like clients, freelancers, etc.

Create tasks by forwarding emails or email the tasks that are created on Bitrix24- it works both ways.

Chat and Video

Bitrix24: Chats and Video Calls

Real-time communication got better, and how!

Instant internal messenger.

Group chat option.

Voice and video calls within the team.

Screen sharing and HD video conferencing.

Free mobile app.

Documents

Team collaboration is incomplete if you cannot upload and save your files. And Bitrix24 provides great options to manage all your documents-

Three types of Drives: My Drive, which is personal; Group drives for group sharing; and Company drive which is accessible by all.

Direct collaboration of documents via activity streams.

Thanks to the changelog, when you upload a new version of a file, the previous one remains unaffected and available.

Other Tools

Bitrix24: Enterprise Ready

Birtrix 24 on premise is perfect for organisations having employees between 50 to 50,000. It comes with a module that can be easily scaled up. It is designed for enterprises. Security is of high concern. Bitrix24 on-premise consists of two-factor authorization methods.

Bitrix24 On-Premise

Along with that, it also gives the benefit of having a self-hosted private cloud. You can have video conferencing, document managements, CRM, HRIS, and so much more in this. Add to this, customised integrations that are crucial for your business.

Bitrix24 Alternatives

I have already mentioned about the two alternatives I will talk about in this article: Wrike and Teamwork. However, few other great alternatives that you can check are: Jira, Freedcamp and Glip.

First Bitrix24 Alternatives – Wrike

Wrike is a great task management tool, although not a hyped one. The budget calculation feature and time tracking option is what I like best in this tool.

If you read about customer votes, Wrike surpasses Bitrix24. Starting off with comparisons, I think it is viable I start with the pricing model.

Why exactly am I talking about the price first? Because let’s be honest. We marketers skim through the features quickly because we are too impatient to see if it will fit our budget or not. Once we are okay with the price, we come back to see the features in details. That’s how human brains work!

So, Wrike has a freemium model with annual subscriptions. The pricing starts at $10/month while for Bitrix24 it is $99/month. Bitrix24 also has a freemium model and provides monthly subscriptions.

Wrike offers a free trial before you move to a paid package. Bitrix24, on the other hand, has a FREE plan for up to 12 users. You can add 12 more employees at $25.

Let’s dig a little further now, and take a look at Wrike’s features in details:

Wrike: Features Highlight

Wrike has a lot of tutorials for you to get started with it. There are series of documents on all the functionalities, like creating a task, adding a schedule or editing the tasks. It is a collaboration tool at its best. Team management is the core of Wrike, so I will begin with this.

Team Management

Wrike offers a folder hierarchy to manage all your projects. You can add, edit and schedule tasks. Along with this, you can assign colours to mention or highlight the status of progress for a specific task. Thanks to integration with various email service providers, Wrike lets you turn an email to a task in a snap.

Real-time editing

A live editing functionality lets everyone in the team collaborate simultaneously. This results in a faster pace and also accuracy in work.

Interactive and Real-time Reporting

Wrike recently upgraded the reporting feature with a new functionality of Wrike Reports Snapshots. You can now take snapshots for all your reports. However, this is available for Enterprise plan only.

Customised Workflows

This is the most interesting feature of Wrike. Since every team cannot have a similar workflow structure, Wrike ensures you have custom workflows. From approval to tracking to getting the deal closed- Your entire workflow is structured as per your needs.

Workload Management and Burndown Chart

Another interesting feature. You will immediately know if any of your team members is under work pressure, or completely free. Workload management feature in Wrike lets you view the tasks assigned to each and access whether a team member has too many deadlines to meet. What you can do here, you can reassign the works to those who are relatively less clamped up. Hence, no one will slog and you get the work done faster.

Analytics

You can have detailed insights of the project status and individual workloads. Wrike offers three types of charts: Performance Chart, Gantt Chart and Baseline Chart.

Wrike for Enterprise

Wrike is a great tool for an enterprise. Here’s what you can get:

Easy collaboration

Project Management

High-end Security

Professional Services and support

Business-oriented and Personalised Wrike

You can read how Wrike has helped enterprises like Marketing agencies and Project Managers in my previous blog: Wrike vs Asana – Which is Most Suitable for Your Team? One such agency is a video production agency ONLYCH1LD. ONLYCH1LD has been a Wrike user for a long time and has benefited a lot from the Enterprise features of Wrike.

During the trial period, Wrike allows up to five users and unlimited collaboration. It provides features like:

Task management and discussions

File sharing

Real-time activity streams

Spreadsheet view

iOS/Android app

Advanced email integration

Basic app integrations

The professional plan begins at $10/user/month when billed annually for 5, 10 or 15 users. You get

5 GB free storage

Unlimited hierarchy folders

Gantt Chart; which means a dynamic timeline

Subtasks, and advanced mass actions

Ten shareable dashboards and customised widgets

Workload view

Time tracking

Interactive reports

Advanced filters

Wrike also offers an enterprise pricing package. The price depends on your requirements. You will need to ask for a quote. Usually, the average price starts at $35/user/month. You get premium support, add thousands of users, storage starting from 100 GB, custom calendars, and extended security controls, to mention few. The best part is you get 20 shareable dashboards, custom workflows and critical path, single sign-on, and Salesforce.

The Bitrix24 paid plans are pretty straightforward and short. There are two varieties: Standard and Professional. Standard comes at $99/month for unlimited employees and external users. The online storage is up to 100 GB. Professional plan is of $199/month where the online storage is free as well.

GDPR update: As per the Wrike website, they work according to the latest GDPR guidelines and have made amendments in their infrastructure accordingly.

Wrike is also working with third-party vendors to ensure the compliance of their terms with GDPR. They also plan to enhance their product features for data portability and data management.

The difference in Features: Wrike vs. Bitrix24

I thin Wrike and Bitrix24 are almost similar, although I will say Wrike is much more polished. The user experience on Wrike is way much simple than Bitrix24. The onboarding in Bitrix24 is little dodgy while on Wrike its smooth.

Second Bitrix24 Alternatives – Teamwork

We know how and what Bitrix24 does, we have also seen how Wrike is better than Bitrix24. Now, let’s consider the second Bitrix24 alternative: Teamwork.

Teamwork has an excellent website. The UI is properly balanced and devoid of any exaggerations. It is true; you will fall in love with this tool!

Teamwork.com

To be precise, Teamwork’s features are broadly categorized as Teamwork Projects, Teamwork Desktop and Teamwork Chats.

One simple reason why I love this tool is their Roadmap and latest updates section. Before starting using this tool for collaboration in your company/project, you will already feel as if the tool is collaborating with you. Like you are its colleague and get to see all that has been assigned, done and checked off! This is unique. For each category, Teamwork has a task list that it checks off once completed. It looks like this:

Teamwork Roadmap and updates

Teamwork Project

To get things done in a jiffy within your team, Teamwork Projects is perfect. It is neither too basic nor very complicated. Rather, it is properly organized. Here’s what you can do:

Collaborate with clients and team.

Available on iPhone, iPad, Android, Google Chrome and The Web.

Works seamlessly with all the apps that you love to use. You have everything in the cloud, safe and secured. To mention few, you can integrate with Box, FreshBooks, Gmail, Xero, Calendar Sync, Google Drive, Hubspot, Teamforce by Timeline IQ, and so much more.

The statistics, continuously changing real-time, clubbed with testimonials make a convincing approach.

Teamwork Desk

Bitrix24 Alternatives, Teamwork Desk is the customer support section. And trust me, it is nothing less than wow!

Here’s a quick overview of what you can expect:

Features like unified inboxes, assigning tickets, ticket statuses and customer portal, makes it easy to manage your customer support desk.

Remember how automated customer support emails look? Yeah, they are boring. Teamwork desk ensures all your customer support emails look like common email conversions. They call it “invisible to customers”.

Compatible with all devices.

Highly analytical. Provides value points that help in improving customer support. The most important indicator is the

Customer Happiness Indicator. Isn’t it great to know from your dashboard instantly how your customers feel about your services?

Know your team’s top performers based on how quickly one responds to customer queries. Competition is healthy, after all.

Get detailed insights on the source of the customer queries.

Get seamless integration with Teamwork Projects.

Teamwork chat

Bitrix24 Alternatives, Teamwork Chat is in beta version at this moment. Chatting is a popular medium of communication these days. A tool that provides this feature is sure to get brownie points.

Here’s how Teamwork chat can take your team collaboration to the next level.

Bitrix24 doesn’t have these advanced features. The integrations are less. You cannot chat, forget unified inboxes, advanced ticketing, and seamless customer support functionalities. Oh, and also the updates and roadmap section. It steals the limelight.

Time to take a look at the pricing structure of Teamwork.

Bitrix24 Alternatives, Teamwork pricing plan starts at $12/month. You can signup for a 30-day free trial. There are seven different pricing plans, including the free trial plan:

1. 30-day free trial

2 projects

100MB space

2. Personal: $12/month

5 projects

1GB space

3. Startup: $24/month

15 projects

5GB space

4. Small office: $49/month

40 projects

20GB space

Custom domain

5. Office: $99/month

75 projects

30GB space

Custom domain

6. Professional: $149/month

15o projects

50GB space

Custom domain

7. Business: $249/month

Unlimited projects

400GB space

Single Sign In via SAML

Unique features of Teamwork: Bitrix24 vs. Teamwork

Track burn rate

Forecast budgets

SMS notifications

Risk/benefit analysis

Another unique feature is the Referral Program. Get paid for referring Teamwork to your friends, colleagues or place their banner with an embedded link on your web page. To know more about how to get cash rolling in, check here.

Teamwork Referral Program

Thus, we finally arrive at the end of our discussion. Least to say, out of the two alternatives, Teamwork takes the cup. If you have used any other tool that is better than those mentioned here, let me know in the comments section.

Teamwork integrations: Teamwork has plenty of new age integrations available with most of the online applciations like, HubSpot, Salesflare, HubStaff, GetSiteControl and so on.

Update on GDPR: Teamwork is constantly making amendments in their tools wherever necessary to make it GDPR compliant. They are doing Data collection and processing audit, Third-party vendors audit to keep their products up to date and as per the GDPR guidelines.

22 Comments

Wrike is considered to be a good alternative of bitrix24. Why? The features like the budget calculation and time tracking of Wrike are one of the bests available in the tool market. These features give Wrike a competitive advantage over other bitrix alternatives.

Bitrix24 is such a tool that lets you manage your tasks, share different documents and track time. It also offers standard workflows to the users for leave requests, purchases and expenses, business trips and a number of other types of general requests. Email collaboration and integration with different social media websites like Twitter, G+, and Facebook etc. are also some of its features.

Bitrix24 is a management tool and it offers a nice and practical approach for managing your company. There are a number of options provided; starting from the very basic options of Like and comment, having different group discussions in order to make any announcement, tag the colleagues, create different reports, etc.

There are about thirty-five more tools that are supposed to be provided by Bitrix24. They include the automation of workflow, ticketing, management of records, management of knowledge, helpdesk and a lot more. Bitrix14 is simple to use and inexpensive and it does not require any sort of IP telephones.

Wrike is an online tool for collaboration and project management in real time which allows team members to communicate and monitor projects at any time and from any location. Wrike project management software allows you to set priorities and define clear objectives. It is distinguished by an elegant interface, speed, accessibility on all devices and is available for Android and iOS applications. Small teams of up to five members can use this program for free gaining basic functionality while larger teams can choose the professional version to be paid.

Sounds like a fun Social Collaboration tool – Bitrix24. It has an uncanny resemblance to Citrix 🙂 another software. Good options available to like, comment, have a group discussion, tagging colleagues, creating reports, managing time… I’m happy to know that it does have a free plan, (up to 12 users, but that’s okay).

Can we actually get information on which are the big companies using bitrix as a system in their organization. It’ll be nice if we’re able to get a sense of who’s using what, saying companies such as IBM, Apple, CNN…

Bitrix24 is a tool for team management and manages companies with a practical outlook. With it one can enjoy editions that are customized and self-hosted. Bitrix24 provides seamless communication. Teamwork and Wrike are the most prominent alternatives to Bitrix24. Some of the other alternatives that one can also check are Glip, Jira and Freedcamp. Between the two prominent alternatives, Teamwork is the most popular.

Ankit Bitrix is a good application when you are looking for effective team management. It supports intranet and comes with telephonic capabilities. It has a number of options to try for and their 1 month free trial period is utilized in exploring all the functionalities that come with Bitrix. According to me, it is a must try tool for team management.

Wrike wrike and Wrike! In terms of performance, interface, budget, efficiency, and usability Wrike is much better and convenient than Bitrix. The customized dashboard feature of Wrike where you can yourself add the things that you want to see or hide has been very helpful in my case.

Is it possible that Bitrix can be integrated with Trello? I have been working on a project and constantly analyzing the advantages of both of these. In some cases I like Bitrix and in some Trello it will be great if there was a possibility to integrate both of them and leverage the advantages of both.

Ankit, as per my knowledge,Bitrix is a cheap version of Wrike. Small companies can also afford it without spending a fortune. It is super easy to use, allow you to create polls in just a few seconds and easily create tasks from chat windows.